DARPA will host a Proposers' Day Conference for the Upward Falling Payload (UFP) program on Friday, January 25, 2012 from 8:00 AM to 12:00 PM in Arlington, VA at the DARPA Conference Center, in support of the Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) DARPA-BAA-13-17 (expected to be released prior to the Conference). The purpose of this conference is to provide information on the UFP program; promote additional discussion on this topic; and to address questions from potential proposers.

PROGRAM OBJECTIVE AND DESCRIPTION: Cost and complexity limit the number of ships and weapon systems the Navy can support in forward operating areas. This concentration of force structure is magnified as areas of contested environments grow. A natural response is to develop lower-cost unmanned and distributed systems that can deliver effects and situation awareness at a distance. However, power and logistics to deliver these systems over vast ocean areas limit their utility. The Upward Falling Payload (UFP) program intends to overcome these barriers. The objective of the UFP program is to realize a new approach for enabling forward deployed unmanned distributed systems that can provide non-lethal effects or situation awareness over large maritime areas. The approach centers on pre-deploying deep-ocean nodes years in advance in forward areas which can be commanded from standoff to launch to the surface. The UFP system is envisioned to consist of three key subsystems: (1) The ‘payload' which executes waterborne or airborne applications after being deployed to the surface, (2) The UFP ‘riser' which provides pressure tolerant encapsulation and launch (ascent) of the payload, and (3) The UFP communications which triggers the UFP riser to launch. A multi-phase effort is envisioned to design, develop, and demonstrate UFP systems.

REGISTRATION INFORMATION: All participants must pre-register for the conference no later than 12:00 PM EST January 22, 2013, and must provide a corporate DUNs code. Please include the subject "UFP Proposers' Day" in all submissions and correspondence. Details on the conference, including registration information and directions to the facility are available for download at the UFP Registration website http://www.solers.com/BAAinfo-reg/UFP/. There is no registration fee for attendance.

The Proposers' Day will be unclassified and only open to US contractors. All attendees will be required to present government issued photo identification upon entry to the event. Additionally, all attendees are required to submit a US Citizenship Verification form in order to attend this conference. Non-US citizens will not be permitted to attend. The completed Citizenship Form must be emailed to DARPA-BAA-13-17@darpa.mil or faxed to: Jason Allio, ManTech, fax: 703-248-1918, phone: 703-526-1706 no later than 12:00 EST January 22, 2013. This document is available for download at the registration website.

A confirmation email that includes directions to the facility and other additional information will be sent to your provided email address upon receipt of the US Citizenship form. Additional information about the conference center can be found at: http://www.darpa.mil/about/contact/visitor_guidelines.aspx

The Proposers' Day is voluntary. Attendance is not required to propose to the BAA for this program. Due to space limitations at the conference facility, attendance will be limited to no more than 2 representatives per organization (unless the registration does not fill to capacity, in which case the 2 representatives per company restriction may be lifted). All attendees will be required to present government issued photo identification upon entry to the event.

Contracting Office Address:

675 North Randolph Street
Arlington,
Virginia
22203-2114
United States